"But More Than 90% Of Our Business Is Through Referral" ?

 

Whether you are working on the residential or commercial side, the challenges of today’s real estate market need to be faced in order to maintain and grow the level of business you are accustomed to. I’m hearing more and more about how deals thought to be “in the pipeline” are not making it to the closing table, which creates added stress for those involved. 

 

Although I am not able to convince everyone I connect with to take steps which would increase their business, there is the matter of how real estate professionals approach their marketing strategies. What worked for you ten years ago may not be working the same as it does now. You no longer have to spend a lot of money just to reach and remind your target audience. It may be a “time vs money” consideration.

Even with the increased number of ways to better market a brand, it is amazing to me that I still hear the occasional “More than 90% of my business is by referral” as an excuse. What if it was “40% of my business is by referral”.

If that became the case, it would mean you would have double the business you had when you restricted yourself to only referrals. Those “referrals” would obviously have come along, based on others knowing and trusting the work you do, whether as an agent or broker, lender, and so on. It indicates that you are good and effective at what you do, even though it is a secret to everyone that does not know you. I also don’t believe you have “all the work you can handle”. What that really tells me is that you are spending a percentage of your time connecting with your referral sources and counting on them to feed your business flow. 

If your business was ‘doubled’ because you were attracting and serving more new clients, things would be a lot different. Chances are you could afford the time and money to delegate certain administrative responsibilities, whether by expanding your team or outsourcing. 

This post is not leading into selling you anything. You may not need to buy anything. 

Why do brokers send out “Just Sold” mailers and make announcements on social media? The short answer is that they wish to let potential new clients and connections know of their success in hopes of generating new leads. Otherwise, they would only tell their friends and established contacts they hope will refer them.

If you don’t want to spend on advertising and marketing, you now have more options than ever to spend more of your time on social media and digital marketing campaigns. Let’s get your percentage of referrals down to where it should be!